This section provides background information related to the present disclosure which is not necessarily prior art.
Plants (e.g., trees, vegetation at a site, etc.) are often used to treat, remediate, etc. contaminated soils, waters, etc. by making use of interactions between the plants and subsurface contaminants. For example, through phytoremediation, contaminants may be taken up into the plants and subsequently degraded (e.g., by microorganisms in the rhizosphere of the vegetation, by biomass of the vegetation, etc.), stored in biomass of the vegetation, released into the air (e.g., by transpiration through leaves, stems, etc.), etc.
Solid phase microextraction (SPME) is a sample preparation technique used for chemical analysis. FIG. 1 illustrates a typical SPME sampling device 1 configured to make use of the SPME sample preparation technique. The illustrated SPME sampling device 1 includes a fiber 3 (having a polymer coating 5) enclosed within a needle housing 7, and a plunger 9 connected to the fiber 3. The plunger 9 may be moved inwardly and/or outwardly of the needle housing 7 to correspondingly move the fiber 3 as desired.
Fibers of SPME sampling devices are coated with polymers having high sorption capacities that, when exposed to compounds of specific chemical natures, allow the compounds to sorb to the polymers proportionately to the concentration of the compounds in the surrounding environment. Following sorption, the fibers can, for example, be directly inserted into a gas chromatograph for desorption and analysis.